Plastics

PSD Nepal partners with the mountain people of Nepal. Together we are cultivating circular economies for waste and plastic solutions. In our pilot schemes, a 1 PET bottle = 1 NPR incentive scheme is in operation, with tens of thousands of plastic bottles cleared every month. This waste is recycled in Pokhara at Himalayan Plastic & creatively up-cycled for educational purposes, promoting environmental and cultural heritage

Our vision is cultivating circular economies in the Himalayan National Parks of Nepal

Our mission is recycling PET plastic bottles from National Parks & promoting creative up-cycling

Our goal is promoting viable job creation, environmental wellbeing, & sustainable local management

PSD Nepal is represented at COP28 by our director - Bishnu Bhatta. He is speaking on the close linkages between climate change disasters in Nepal and healthcare, rural resilience, and vulnerabilities across the country. He is spotlighting our work in Langtang Valley, Rasuwa, in both the Nepal Country pavilion and the WHO Health pavilion - with audiences of 1500+ in both. Our work in plastics recycling and upcycling will also be noted.

Read more on this important event on the Kathmandu Post recent publication: https://kathmandupost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/20/nepal-to-highlight-climate-effects-at-top-un-summit

The Langtang National Park in Rasuwa, Northern Nepal, is the oldest national park of Nepal, founded in 1976, and hosts over 18,000 domestic and international trekkers every year. Langtang is the third most popular national park in Nepal, after Everest (Sagarmartha) and Annapurna (ACAP). 

The Langtang Valley is home to 101 trekking lodges, who host over 80 trekkers every day of the season (Sept-Nov, Feb-Apr). Every season, up to 200,000 plastic bottles are consumed - and left - in Langtang. There are an estimated 5 million bottles in the valley from historic treks. This totals more than 125 T of waste. The recycling and up-cycling processes extract value from this waste, create local employment, and promote local reinvestment opportunities.

Recycling is currently conducted in parntership with Himalayan Plastic, Pokhara. With over 200 tonnes of plastic bottle (PET) waste annually in the National Parks of Nepal,  PSD Nepal is forming partnerships with local communities to promote recycling. In Langtang National Park, CDO, LNP and local elder KGLS (Kyangen Gumpa Langtang Society) partnerships are running the clearing, collection, and recycling logic. Presently, over 40,000 bottles are recycled every month from Langtang (c. 1 tonne PET/month, 12t/yr). Read more at the link about the Himalayan Plastic recycling facility, who operate a PET re-purposing plant in Pokhara. Watch the PSD project in action.

Support this scheme, by getting in touch with us on our connect page

Upcycling with PSD Nepal is run in three streams - action architecture, education, and upcycled HDPE products. See our upcycling page for all the details ! We have built a Plastic PET Pavilion in Langtang National Park, of 2,447 upcycled plastic bottles, to showcase the plastics issue in the Himalaya. PSD Nepal also runs educational awareness activities for schools and community groups on waste, using upcycled PET plastic bottle caps. Further upcycling is facilitated by a technical team from NAST, headed up by Dr Rabindra Dhakal, with a pyrolysis machine converting plastic waste into RDF (reduced diesel fuel), with 80% efficiency. 

Upcycling is defined as the process of transforming by-products & waste materials, useless into new materials or products of better quality or environmental value. See our upcycling page for more

By the year 2025, 400 tonnes of PET plastic waste will need to be recycled in the National Parks of Nepal. PSD Nepal are aiming to accompany the national Visit Nepal 2022 tourist movement with a Vision Nepal 2025 on recycling and waste re-purposing, to keep the Himalaya clean.

PSD Nepal are designing this project with a strong social enterprise bent. Plastic bottles, tourist waste, and poor recycling facilities currently impinge on the environmental wellbeing of the Himalayan National Parks. PSD works with local partners to provide employment and local involvement in the clearing and recycling logistic. PSD Nepal also sends overseas partners and offers eco projects in the National Parks to support such projects. Get in touch!

The leaders of the long-term work streams are; 

1. Recycling logistic: Mr S Johns (Geog, Oxford)
2. Upcycling technology: Dr R Dhakal (NAST)
3. Management: Bishnu H Bhatta (PSD Director, KTM)

The Nepali Times featured PSD Plastics in national news, with a spotlight focus on Langtang National Park and the social enterprise work of PSD in creating both local employment and income generation, as well as waste clearing and environmental stewardship.

"Langtang Valley is just beginning to recover from the earthquake three years ago, but another disaster looms large here in the high Himalaya: The Plastic Crisis. As the region rebuilds, tourists are flocking back to this stunningly scenic region, 7-hour drive north of Kathmandu. Every year, about 15,000 trekkers visit the Langtang National Park, using up and leaving behind 200,000 plastic water bottles. A conservative estimate puts the number of discarded bottles in Langtang Valley alone at 5 million."

https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/plastic-money/

Photo Credit: Yuvaraj Shrestha

In the summer of 2023, we were very sad to find the carcasses of dead yaks above Kyanjin Gompa (Langtang National Park), who had all died from the injestion of plastic, mostly thin plastic bags. As we know, plastic bottles stay in the environment for 450+ years. Plastic bags are ubiquitous in Nepal, and can cause much short-term damage as well, including river pollution, environmental degradation, health hazards - and this tragic story of yaks (including calves) losing their lives.

This is the cost of not dealing with the plastic crisis.